A few days after the arrival of the Francis, Mr. Rogers sailed for China, taking with him two women and three men who had received permission to quit the colony.  On board of the Fairy was found a convict, John Crow, who for some offence had been confined in the military guardhouse at Parramatta, whence he found means to make his escape, and reached Sydney in time to swim on board the American.  On being brought on shore he received a slight punishment, and was confined in the black hole at the guardhouse at Sydney, out of which he escaped a night or two after, by untiling a part of the roof.  After this he was not heard of, till the watch apprehended him at Parramatta, where he had broken into two houses, which he had plundered, and was caught with the property upon him.

The frequency of enormous offences had rendered it necessary to inflict a punishment that should be more likely to check the commission of crimes than mere flagellation at the back of the guardhouse, or being sent to Toongabbie.  Crow, therefore, was lodged in the custody of the civil power, and ordered for trial by the court of criminal judicature.

During the time the Fairy lay at anchor in this cove, a sergeant and three privates of the New South Wales corps were sent and remained on board, for the purpose of preventing all improper visitations from the shore, and inspecting whatever might be either received into or sent from the ship in a suspicious manner:  a regulation from which the master professed to have found essential service, as he thereby kept his decks free from idle or bad people, and his seamen went on unmolested with the duty of the vessel.

On Saturday the 23rd, the flour and rice in store being nearly expended, the ration was altered to the following proportions of those articles, viz: 

To the officers, civil and military, soldiers, overseers, and the settlers from free people, were served, of biscuit or flour 2 pounds; wheat 2 pounds; Indian corn 5 pounds; peas 3 pints.

To the male convicts were served, women and children receiving in the proportions always observed, (of biscuit or flour, none, and for the first time since the establishment of the colony) wheat 3 pounds; Indian corn 5 pounds; paddy 2 pints; gram 2 pints.

This was universally felt as the worst ration that had ever been served from his Majesty’s stores; and by the labouring convict particularly so, as no one article of grain was so prepared for him as to be immediately made use of.  The quantity that was now to be ground, and the numbers who brought grain to the mill, kept it employed all the night as well as the day; and as, from the scarcity of mills, every man was compelled to wait for his turn, the day had broke, and the drum beat for labour, before many who went into the mill house at night had been able to get their corn ground.  The consequence was, that many, not being able to wait, consumed their allowance unprepared.  By the next Saturday, a quantity of wheat sufficient for one serving having been passed through the large mill at Parramatta, the convicts received their ration of that article ground coarse.